UK Space Scientist Colin Pillinger Dies at 70

A Thursday, Dec. 25, 2003 photo from files of Professor Colin Pillinger, leading scientist for the Beagle 2 Mars landing module, gestures in a control centre in central London in front of a model of the 'pod' which landed on Mars as he waits for radio signals from the device.Colin Pillinger, an ebullient British space scientist who captured the popular imagination with his failed attempt to land a probe on Mars, has died. He was 70.

Pillinger's family said Thursday that he died at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge after suffering a brain hemorrhage while sitting in his garden in the university town.

Pillinger, a professor of interplanetary science at the Open University, was the driving force behind Beagle 2, a tiny craft that was supposed to land on Mars on Christmas Day in 2003 and search for signs of life.

But contact with the probe was lost soon after it separated from its European Space Agency Mars Express mother ship on Dec. 19. An investigation concluded that it probably burned up in the planet's atmosphere.